In 2003, I moved to live and work in Seattle where I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. Prior to this, I was an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Language & Communication Research at Cardiff University in Wales where I also taught CMC for several years. During this time, I received an Award for Outstanding Teaching sponsored by International Communication Association.

I studied as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Natal in South Africa and my academic background was originally in applied psychology and social science. Later, however, I went on to specialise in language and communication - first at Sheffield Hallam University in England and then at Cardiff University in Wales. Nowadays, my academic interests center around (a) lifespan communication and adolescence, (b) computer-mediated communication, and (c) intercultural communication and global tourism. I am especially interested in the role of language, social interaction and multimodal discourse in each of these communication domains.